


Grounded

by rose_griffes



Series: 5 times Gaby and Illya surprised each other - and one time Solo surprised them both [1]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, Gardening, Gen, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 11:09:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17000448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rose_griffes/pseuds/rose_griffes
Summary: Gaby surprises Illya, more often than he wants to admit.(A stopover in Munich, a mission in Liechtenstein, and Gaby with a green thumb.)





	Grounded

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/gifts).



He doesn’t like this: a rush job, Cowboy calls it. The three of them are finalizing plans for the mission in Liechtenstein. Munich is merely a stop on the way: a place to pause and make plans before their destination. 

“Gaby will go in first,” Illya says, and picks up the list of staff members on the estate. Solo nods in agreement, but doesn’t make a verbal response. 

The man is strangely quiet here; it was unnerving until Illya realized why. Cowboy would have been sixteen when he marched with the American Army on Munich. They had taken this town in April nineteen forty-five, and Dachau as well, only twenty kilometers away. 

Gaby’s outward mood has been a reflection of Solo’s subdued melancholy, even though Illya knows that she is secretly pleased to visit a West German city. 

“So. You will go in as maid,” Illya tells Gaby after scanning over the staff list for Herr Vogt’s estate. 

“No,” she snaps, glaring at him. “Not a maid. I’m tired of playing maids and secretaries.” 

Before Illya can reply, Cowboy asks, “What would you suggest instead?” Rather than his usual teasing, Solo sounds bored, maybe even a bit angry.

Gaby taps her finger twice on the map of the estate. “Gardener. With grounds this big, they have to have multiple gardeners.”

Correct. The staff includes a head gardener and three more full-time gardeners, as well as part-time help depending on the season.

“You can do this?” The question falls from Illya’s mouth before he can stop himself, but he needs to know. Gaby has a tendency to believe herself capable of doing anything.

To be fair, she is remarkably effective. Most of the time. Sometimes in very unconventional ways that make him nervous just thinking about them. So the question remains. 

Her lips form a straight line and her nostrils flare. “Better than you,” she announces.

“This is not difficult,” he replies. “I know almost nothing about gardening.” 

Solo takes his turn as doubter again. “You’ll have to convince the head gardener, at the very least.”

“All these missions we do together, and I always have to trust that you know what you’re doing,” Gaby says. “But what about the baklava incident, hmm?” 

Cowboy looks--not embarrassed, Illya doesn’t believe the man could manage that, but at least more self-aware than usual. Illya starts to smirk, but Gaby glares at him in turn. “And you too. I haven’t forgotten what happened at the Turkish baths, you know.” 

This is an unfair comparison. He doesn't have time to protest; Gaby presses on, firm and decisive. “You leave the other gardeners to me.” 

Illya looks at Solo, who raised his eyebrows but doesn't speak. Passing the buck, to borrow another of Cowboy’s Americanisms. Illya glances at Gaby again; she has a scrap of paper in her hand, busy writing. 

“I’m making a list of what I’ll need to start with,” she states. Solo examines his cuff links rather than make eye contact with them. 

Apparently Gaby is going undercover as a gardener now, because neither of them has the will to tell her no.

* * *

They finish planning Gaby’s role, and what Cowboy will do to get her into place. This is all they can do in Munich, but it’s late enough that they will wait until morning to leave. Gaby announces that she’s going to walk around the city, and stretches out her arm towards Illya. “Are you coming?”

He nods. It is a difficult balance, building up this team for U.N.C.L.E., but also trying **not** to learn information about his new partners that the directorate of the KGB would want to have. A walk--this is safe, he thinks. 

(This thing with Gaby--whatever he might have wanted it be--it is another reason to act with caution. If they were two ordinary people, if they lived the lives of these covers, a gardener and a computer engineer… but they don’t have those lives.)

He gauges Gaby’s mood and steers them away from Schellingstraße. This way they will avoid the bullet holes purposely left in the city wall there: a marker of the fighting that happened here near the end of the war. 

The chill of February doesn’t dampen Gaby’s quick stride. They make it to Hofbräuhaus--the most famous of Munich’s biergartens--in less than twenty minutes. After one beer, Gaby declares that it’s time to return to the hotel. Illya doesn’t argue; he’s worried about Solo as well.

Cowboy is quietly drunk when they get back, and still untalkative. It takes Gaby gently persuading--something he rarely sees, Gaby using soft words like this--and Illya lending an arm of support to move Solo to his hotel bed. 

Munich is beautiful, thinks Illya, but he is relieved when they leave for Liechtenstein the next morning. In the future, he will steer them away from this part of Germany, if possible.

* * *

Solo’s job in Liechtenstein is to make the space for Gaby’s cover job--a bribe here, a phone call there, maybe a bit of flirtation, all to create the temporary opening in the gardening staff. Similar to what they would have done for the role of maid, had Gaby accepted the idea.

When everything is in place, she leaves their fancy hotel in elegant garb, Illya trailing discreetly after her. She changes into her new uniform in a cafe restroom; after Gaby steps outside again, he takes the bag containing the outfit she left behind. 

He watches ‘Liesel’ the would-be gardener walk the remaining distance to the Vogt estate. Her hair is braided in a practical style to reinforce Liesel’s worker status, her face scrubbed clean of makeup. 

She doesn’t turn around as she walks the last block. Instead she lifts her chin when she gets to the gates; one of the few tells he relies on as truly part of Gaby instead of a cover. 

Now she’ll be on her own, responsible for making her own contacts and taking care of her own safe exit.

* * *

Herr Vogt is, as Cowboy says, a paranoid bastard. He’s also clever and tech-savvy, so they can’t risk sending radio signals or using trackers. They’re going low-tech; Illya and Solo look for the small ribbon Gaby ties to a small section of the iron railing. It’s on the other side of a hedge: visible from the outside, but not from inside the estate: their only indicator that she’s well. 

Two days later Illya takes a taxi from the train station to the estate. His computer expert outfit is carefully unmemorable: trousers slightly too short, his shirt made of cheap fabric. The role of Andrei is familiar; Illya has played this before. KGB agreed, reluctantly, to allow him to reprise the role for U.N.C.L.E. It’s their contribution, meant to help with the pressing nature of this assignment. 

It doesn’t take him long to unpack his clothes; after that he heads straight to the greenhouse. He wants to establish a pattern of behavior for Andrei in this new location. No Gaby here, not that he expected to see her. Hoped for it, maybe. Illya sits on a bench, glaring at plants as the weak sun filtered through the glass overhead.

He won’t ask about her; Andrei the visiting computer expert has no reason for acquaintance with a German gardener working the grounds on an estate in Liechtenstein. 

His mother used to tell him _Fear has big eyes._ His worry for Gaby, somewhere on this large estate, makes him feel like a child again: weak, vulnerable. 

Illya feels anxious for both of his partners. One day KGB directorate will pull him from U.N.C.L.E., will demand to know everything about the people he works with now. Solo’s real age is a safe crumb of information to offer. What Illya will not want to tell the directorate is that he learned this information from Solo as they huddled around a small campfire in northern Finland, waiting for extraction on a snowy night. A moment of camaraderie, of human connection as they drank the last of the whisky from Solo's fancy flask. 

He has tried not to care. Not to learn too much. Working to contribute to U.N.C.L.E. and building this team’s rapport while still keeping his partners safe in the future, when he will face his countrymen again, and their inevitable questions.

All of these pieces; he cannot make them fit together. Solo and Gaby, U.N.C.L.E., his family, the KGB, his homeland…

His heart races. Hands to each side of his knees, Illya grips the bench, taking slow breaths. 

The greenhouse smell is odd but pleasant. Earth and plants and even a hint of floral; from his seat on the bench he spots a few early blooms that someone had coaxed into life. He lets his gaze linger on them, then back to the different shades of green: from straw-like pale greens to the dark of a northern forest, all reflected in the motley collection of plants in this moderately-sized greenhouse.

Does Gaby see this every day?

* * *

His first hint of her comes in the sound of a gas-powered motor. As Andrei, he attends the elegant dinner welcoming all the visiting experts. After, they walk the grounds of the estate, the cool air nipping at them. He finds the temperature pleasant. Their host walks with them, boasting about himself by praising the groundskeepers for the beauty of their work. The distant buzz they hear is some kind of saw or pruning machinery, he decides.

When the others went back inside, Illya keeps walking, making a loop toward the sound. 

It stops before he gets to that side of the estate grounds. Whoever was using the equipment left only a few small twigs on the ground below the trimmed tree. 

Maybe it was her. Could have been someone else.

* * *

Andrei has meetings to attend on his second day; he doesn't wander the grounds or visit the greenhouse. He checks for her ‘all is well’ sign and moves on. It is both reassuring and frustrating, knowing that she is here and doing well, but not able to see her for himself.

He breaks into the computer lab that night, taking care to avoid the guards--few in number and doing their jobs badly, in any case--and to leave all of the equipment as he found it. Bypassing the sensors is easy; frankly the locks are more difficult.

Perhaps Cowboy would have been faster, but Illya gets the job done.

He had noticed this morning that the labs didn’t take up all the space that they could have; a subtle difference in size, but enough for him to decide to look for more rooms on the north side. 

The entrance is hidden between two support beams: clever design to conceal the lab where the real work is done. Herr Vogt keeps a scrupulously clean public image, but U.N.C.L.E.--or rather, Waverly, had guessed that more was going on in Vogt Corporation than simple computing and robotics. 

Now Illya has proof, although he won't smuggle it off the grounds himself; Andrei will continue as the faithful Soviet computer expert for the rest of his scheduled visit. The directorate at the KGB only allowed this cover if the risk to it was kept minimal. He is not even permitted to tell his partners what his cover identification is. 

He will need to pass the film to Gaby, so she can smuggle it to the contact she had made, but for this he will use the dead drop that they planned. They cannot chance any contact that might appear suspicious in hindsight.

* * *

Three more days of meetings about computer languages and design. Illya visits the greenhouse occasionally, because that is what Andrei does now. 

He knows Gaby picked up the film from the dead drop; she left a discreet visual signal in the usual place. 

Continuing a role with the objective already achieved is a mixture of the best and worst elements of spy work. He must maintain this cover, must give Andrei believable actions and interactions, but his thoughts wander to questions like what the next job will be, or how U.N.C.L.E. will use the information from the photographs. At least Andrei is a comfortable fit, with similar background and expertise to Illya’s own.

* * *

Andrei hides in the greenhouse for a break after lunch, uncomfortably full from the third bowl of Hafalaab that Frau Vogt had foisted on Illya. As usual, no one else is here--until he hears the door on the other side creak open. One person, from the sound of the footsteps: someone lightweight. 

“I think you’ll like having more space.” This is not the Alemannic German spoken by the locals. Gaby comes into view, accompanied by a scraping noise as she pushes a large clay pot across the work table in the middle of the greenhouse. 

He fights his first instinct: going over to her to check that she truly is well. To stand near her and listen to her scold him for getting close when it’s not within mission parameters. 

Instead he watches her, waiting to see what she’ll do next. 

She places something that looks like a coffee filter into the bottom of the large pot, then scoops handfuls of two different kinds of dirt from bins near the table. After mixing the soils in the larger pot, Gaby gently tugs a plant free from a smaller pot that was already on the table. She wears colorful gardening gloves that are currently covered in dirt, a pair of overalls and an unzipped jacket. There’s a greasy smudge near her temple, and the boots on her feet have grease stains as well. 

He thinks that maybe she has been working with the motorized gardening equipment. She looks almost the same as the first time he saw her, that night in East Berlin six months ago. Unnamed emotions well up, and he tamps them down. He is, he decides, pleased to see his colleague. This is all.

“Lots of room to grow here,” Gaby says. She tugs off her gloves and uses her bare fingers to carefully loosen tangled clumps of root before placing the plant into the larger pot and filling in more soil around it. 

Illya doesn’t think he moved, but Gaby suddenly looks his way, eyes widening. Her expression switches from open to guarded, and then he can see her planning what to do next. 

“Oh!” she says, and then clasps a fist to her chest in a contrived gesture. “You frightened me!” 

“I am sorry,” he tells her. He doesn’t try to hide his Russian accent while speaking the words in German. He stands and debates internally whether ‘Andrei’ would walk out now or walk over to the pretty gardener in the center of the greenhouse. 

In Munich they had briefly discussed the possibility of running into each other in their cover roles, deciding to avoid interaction or play it cool. Instead, Gaby presses forward with a deliberate mockery of the kind of flirtation that Illya finds most mundane. 

“You’re so tall!” she says, almost cooing the words. 

Unfortunately, because it is Gaby, his thoughts stutter for a moment in spite of the triteness of the comment. Her dark eyes crinkle at the corners as she watches him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man as tall as you before.” 

It takes him another moment to decide what Andrei will do next. He shrugs, playing shy, because it is the easiest option for the moment. Gaby continues, making her Liesel into an incorrigible flirt as Andrei shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other. 

Is the aggressive coquetry to keep her cover as Liesel, or to bury the softness he saw when she was re-potting the plant, before she knew he was there? She hasn’t stopped since this conversation started, a one-sided barrage of obvious looks and heavy-handed hints. 

“Maybe you can help me move these heavy plants,” Gaby says. “You look like you’re very strong!” 

Illya successfully holds in a snort of laughter at that, and makes Andrei’s escape from the greenhouse. One part of him wants to go back in and reply in kind, see what she would do if he flirted back in the same way. He also feels aggravated: a feeling that he doesn’t want to examine too closely. 

Only one more day of this conference and ‘Andrei’ will be on his way again. Gaby has to work here at least another forty-eight hours after that before ‘Liesel’ will fall ill and require a break from her job.

* * *

Illya stays close to Liechtenstein for the two days after the conference ends, crossing into Austria on a commission for Waverly. He returns to Vaduz in time to meet Gaby at the safe house. She is almost vibrating with energy, bounding around the small room, telling him about different unusual plants grown on the estate. Illya hadn't noticed them during the conference.

After she exhausts the topic of interesting plants--and this takes much longer than he would have thought--she moves on to the backstage spectacle of the Vogt estate’s staff. It reminds him of the televised dramas that Gaby loves to watch when they’re in London. 

She finally winds down, a self-conscious expression crossing her face. “You should have stopped me from talking so much,” she tells him. 

“I do not mind,” he says. Gaby scoffs, but the tight line of her shoulders eases. 

Who knew that exposure to plants would lead to an East German mechanic turned spy to shift from measured words to careless chatter? He is charmed by it. 

She declares that she’s going to take a bath. Illya moves couch cushions to the floor, making a bed for himself. 

In the morning they will travel by car to Zürich, where Solo is waiting, and from there back to London by airplane.

* * *

U.N.C.L.E.’s resources don’t extend to private jets unless they’re a necessity. Illya approves; it is an unnecessary luxury. Cowboy complains about it, then finds the right person to flirt with in the airport. They end up in the lounge reserved for premium passengers, even though their tickets aren’t for first class. 

Illya would complain about this extravagance in return, but it is quieter in here. They will be stuck on a noisy, smoke-filled plane soon enough; he will enjoy the calm while he can. Cowboy enthralls the lounge bartender, and now they all have drinks in hand. Solo sits across from Gaby and Illya; Gaby swings her feet, deliberately bringing her shoes close to Solo’s clothes to annoy him. 

It works, but only for a moment, so she shifts to looking into her handbag. Something about her movement draws Illya's his attention. 

“What do you have in there?” he asks. She freezes for a moment, eyes going wide. _Oh_ , he thinks. This is something important to her. For a moment Gaby's hands stay still, and then she pulls something out of the handbag. (The purse is a Vuitton, heavily marked with the current version of the company's logo. He thinks it is too showy, so probably Cowboy picked it out.) The item is partially wrapped in cellophane; Gaby holds it, glancing down, and then hands it to him. 

It is a plant cutting: the leaves and part of the stem visible, the rest wrapped in a damp paper towel and folded in a cellophane pouch to keep it moist. “It’s for Waverly,” she tells him, chin tilted up. “I’m going to re-root it and buy a nice pot.”

He doesn’t think of Waverly as the type to be sentimental about plants, but his office has a window, and he spends many hours working there. No doubt Gaby will inform him in careful detail how to keep the plant alive… and that Waverly will conscientiously do so, given his fondness for Gaby. 

(Their first mission gave Waverly the leverage to form U.N.C.L.E., and the man had cultivated Gaby as an asset and spy for over a year before that. Illya doesn't begrudge the man his favorites.)

“So how does a chop shop girl from Berlin know how to garden?” he asks her. 

“It wasn’t a chop shop,” she tells him, not for the first time. In a previous conversation about this, she had stated that _most_ of their business was legal. Not the same as an entirely legal repair garage, so he hasn't dropped the nickname. 

“The first engines that my foster father repaired were tractor engines.” He thinks this will be the end of Gaby's revelations, but she goes on. “The Schmidts had relatives in east Brandenburg, and we were allowed to visit. They used to put us to work in the garden.” 

Gaby glances at him--whether it’s to check that he’s paying attention, or something else, Illya doesn’t know. “I thought it was fun,” she admits. “Even in Berlin, we always had plants growing on the balcony and in the kitchen window.” 

Solo interrupts this quiet admission, leaning in from his seat. “Why didn’t you tell us that in Munich?” he demands. 

“I told you to leave the gardener to me,” Gaby replies, serene in spite of Cowboy’s annoyed expression. 

“That wasn’t particularly reassuring.” 

Gaby makes a small _hmph_ noise and lightly shrugs one shoulder, as if to say _not my problem._

Illya catches a hint of amusement in the flash of her eyes. He hands her the cutting, and she puts it back in her handbag.

* * *

His dreams about Gaby include splashes of greenery for months to come. Illya tries not to dwell on them when he wakes up, but they twine through his thoughts like ivy.

**Author's Note:**

> Brandenburg is the German state that surrounds (but does not include) Berlin. The East German government dissolved the states and formed administrative districts instead, but people would have still known the region by that name. The economy in Brandenburg was based on industry, coal mining, and agriculture. 
> 
> Airline travel in the sixties: smuggling a plant cutting into the UK would have been easy. Checking passengers' IDs? Maybe, but usually not. X-rays (of humans, of baggage): nope. Bag searches? Only if you seemed suspicious.
> 
> So Gaby successfully smuggled her plant baby back to London, got it to root, and now it is green and thriving in Waverly's office. ~~Mostly thanks to his assistant.~~


End file.
